The legendary assassins' cult of Demerchan, Captain Jikri assured Lady Sarai, was quite real and headquartered somewhere in the Small Kingdoms; beyond that he knew nothing definite. At Lady Sarai's insistence, Tikri sent a well-funded agent to attempt to learn more.
Until the agent returned there was nothing else to be done about Demerchan, so Sarai turned her attention to other organizations, ones that happened to be closer at hand-the organizations that represented the different schools of magic. She knew of five-the Wizards' Guild, the Council of Warlocks, the Brotherhood, the Sisterhood, and the Hierarchy of Priests. Neither sorcerers nor demonologists nor any of the lesser sorts of magicians, such as herbalists or scientists, seemed to have any unifying body-at least, four years of research into magic had failed to find any sign of one operating in Ethshar.
Lady Sarai didn't think it was worth worrying about herbalists or the like, and she couldn't do much about the sorcerers or demonologists, but the five known groups definitely wanted attention-especially the wizards and warlocks, since the killers had left indications of wizardry and warlockry.
The Wizards' Guild was by far the most powerful of the organizations-every wizard was a member, bound by Guild rules, as well she knew. Every wizard in the World was responsible to his or her local Guildmaster.
Most people thought that the Guildmasters ran everything, but Sarai knew better. She had learned a year before that the Guildmasters, popularly believed to all be equals in the government of the Wizards' Guild, in fact answered to a select few called the Inner Circle-that secret, she was given to understand, could cost her her life if she were too free in its dissemination.
If she wanted to speak to someone with real power in the Wizards' Guild, she knew she should speak to a member of the Inner Circle-but if the very existence of the Inner Circle was secret, she could hardly expect anyone to tell her who was a member.
Serem the Wise might or might not have been a member; her informant thought that he had been. This particular rumor had come up in a discussion of Serem's apparent successor as the senior Guildmaster in Ethshar of the Sands-Telurinon of the Black Robe was definitely not a member of the Inner Circle and was said to have hopes of changing that.
But if Telurinon was not in the Inner Circle, was he really the city's senior member of the Guild?
Well, whether he was or not, he was her best possible contact with the Guild; she sent him a message asking if a private meeting could be arranged for her to speak to the Guild's representatives in Ethshar of the Sands.
While she waited for a reply, she considered the other organizations.
The Council of Warlocks was a much looser body than the Guild; while every warlock she spoke to seemed more or less to acknowledge its authority, at least within the city walls, no one mentioned rules or discipline or death threats when discussing the Council. The membership of the actual Council seemed to change fairly often-since it was nominally composed of the twenty most powerful warlocks in the city, its members were also the warlocks most likely to hear the Calling and vanish without notice.
She wasn't sure just who the current chairman was; Sarai was fairly certain that Mavis of Beachgate had left the city, either Called or fleeing southward by ship, hoping to get farther from Aldagmor before the Calling could claim her.
Luralla would know, though; she had the warlock called in and asked her to take a message to the chairman of the Council. Those groups were the important two, but for the sake of thoroughness, Lady Sarai considered the others.
Only a minority of theurgists had any connection with the Hierarchy of Priests; Sarai wasn't sure whether that would have made them more or less suspicious under other circumstances. As it was, though, Okko happened to be the high priest, and Sarai simply couldn't take seriously the idea that he might be behind some fiendish conspiracy.
Still, she did go so far as to question him briefly while a witch by the name of Shala of the Green Eyes sat concealed in an adjoining room, watching for lies or any sign of guilt. Shala had been hired almost at random, after a walk down the western portion of Wizard Street-Sarai wanted to avoid using anyone Okko might recognize or might have had any chance to subvert. Shala found no evidence that Okko was concealing anything and assured Sarai that the old theurgist was telling the truth when he swore he knew nothing about the murders he hadn't told Lady Sarai.
Of course, there might be another organization of theurgists- but really, theurgists committing murder? The gods didn't approve of that sort of thing.
That brought Sarai to the witches.
Witches had two organizations, segregated by sex-which made no sense that Sarai could see, since she hadn't come across any differences between how witchcraft worked for men and how it worked for women. Neither of them was very structured-the Sisterhood generally chose their leaders by lot at erratic intervals, while the Brotherhood elected them annually, and there was no permanent hierarchy in either group. Between them, they included perhaps a third of the thousand or so witches in the city. The Sisterhood was somewhat larger than the Brotherhood-but then, Sarai had the impression that there were more female witches than male.
Of the witches she had dealt with, Sarai knew at least one was a member of the Sisterhood-Shirith of Ethshar, who had tried unsuccessfully to heal Lord Kalthon. There were no annoying delays while meetings were arranged; Shirith and her apprentice came when invited and met with Lady Sarai in the Great Council Chamber that same evening.
Sarai had chosen the council chamber, rather than one of the innumerable smaller rooms in the palace, to impress upon the witches just how important this was-and also because the chamber gave an impression of great privacy, even while Okko would be listening from a concealed room adjoining, and Mereth of the Golden Door would be watching by means of a scrying spell.
She dressed for the meeting in a nondescript tunic and skirt. She not only didn't wear the impressive robes of the Minister of Justice-she had had a set altered to fit her when first she found herself forced to act in her father's place-but she dressed far more simply than was her wont, to add to the air of secrecy.
The thought struck her as she straightened her skirt that she was probably entitled to some sort of formal costume as Minister of Investigation; she had never worried about it before, since it was not in the nature of the job to make public appearances.
Perhaps this plain black skirt and dark blue tunic would serve. Her mouth twisted in a semblance of a smile at the thought.
She could hear her father's labored breathing as she crossed to the door; Kalthon the Younger was asleep in his chamber, but their father was awake, lying on the couch-or at any rate, as awake as he ever was anymore.
She took a moment to kiss his brow, then left the apartments and hurried down the corridor.
She found the two witches waiting in the council chamber, looking very small and alone in the two chairs they occupied of the hundred or so that the room held. Three red-kilted guards were standing watch, one at each door; Sarai dismissed them. "Shirith," she said, when the doors had closed behind the guards, "I'm so glad you could come."
The elder witch rose and curtsied. When she stood again she smiled wryly, and said, "Perhaps, Lady Sarai, you have not yet realized just how unlikely any citizen of Ethshar is to ignore a summons to the Palace from the Acting Minister of Justice, especially one delivered by a member of the city guard in full uniform, including sword."
Sarai had not thought of it in those terms. She had sent a soldier because he was handy-most of the officials of the overlord's government used the city guard for their errands outside the palace.
To an ordinary citizen, though…
Well, she saw Shirt’s point. And perhaps it was just as well; she had wanted to impress the witches with the severity of the situation, after all.
"Do you know why you're here?" Sarai asked. She knew the more skilled and powerful witches could hear the thoughts in people's heads, if they tried, and Shirith was undoubtedly skilled.
"Do you want me to?" Shirith countered. "Ah, I see you do, if only to save time. I'm sorry, Lady Sarai, but I'm afraid that… oh."
She paused, then said, "The killings. Poor Kelder."
Sarai nodded.
"If you could tell me more, Lady Sarai…" Shirith began.
Lady Sarai explained quickly, well aware that Shirith was filling in missing details with her witchcraft.
"I'm afraid," Shirith said at last, "that I can't help you. We in the Sisterhood are naturally concerned, even though Kelder was obviously not one of our members. I can attest that I am in no way involved in these killings, nor is any member of the Sisterhood with whom I have spoken in the past month. Your theurgist will confirm that I speak the truth; I don't know what the wizard's spell will show, but if it tests veracity, then that, too, should support me."
So much, Sarai thought, for secrecy.
"Well," Shirith said apologetically, "once I start listening to what lies behind your words, I can't always help hearing more than you might want."
Sarai waved that away. "It doesn't matter," she said, "and I didn't really suppose that the Sisterhood was behind the murders. Can you vouch for the Brotherhood, as well?"
"Not as definitely," Shirith admitted, "but I can send their leaders to you for questioning."
Sarai nodded. "That would be useful. Do you have any other suggestions? Anything you would advise me to do to track down these killers who use both wizardry and warlockry?"
Shirith shook her head. "No," she said, then added, "it's odd, that combination; wizards and warlocks have distrusted each other since the Night of Madness, and from what I've heard, warlockry fits better elsewhere."
"What do you mean?" Sarai asked. Then she remembered something Kelder had said, when the two of them were studying Serem's corpse.
"Well," Shirith said, "it appears, from all I've heard, that witchcraft and warlockry are much more closely related to each other than either one is to wizardry."
"I've heard that, too," Sarai admitted. "Do you know who you might want to talk to?" Shirith suggested. "Tendril of Fishertown, from Ethshar of the Spices. The word in the Sisterhood is that she's made some remarkable discoveries about connections between witchcraft and warlockry- especially remarkable, since she's still only a journeyman."
"Thank you," Sarai said, making a mental note of the name. "I'll do that."
In the three days that followed Sarai spoke to a four-man delegation from the Brotherhood and removed that group from suspicion, as well. She sent a messenger by sea to Ethshar of the Spices, to fetch this Tendril of Fishertown. She had notices circulated to demonologists, sorcerers, and other magicians of various kinds that she sought any information they could provide about whoever was responsible for the recent murders.
But she received no reply from either the Council of Warlocks or the Wizards' Guild, nor did she learn who had killed those men, women, and dogs.